The Tavern Post 9/9/15

Good day my patrons! This is my last week before I go back to school to start my Master’s degree. So… with that in mind, there may be a decline in the amount of posts during the weeks to come until winter. However, this week I would like to go out with a bang! So I will be doing some extra posts this week.

Just Me Being Racist

This week we will be looking at the only good elves in the world (in my opinion), half-elves. These guys are half human half elf, get all the great things from being an elf, but minus the whole being a freaking elf thing. Stat bonus wise this is my favorite race, as you will see Friday!

Play-Through Party

This week we will be having 2 Play-Through Parties! To start us off will be continuing our look into Dungeons and Dragons classes. This week we will be looking at the wizard. This as the original class I ever first played when I started Dungeons and Dragons back in 3.5 so this has a special place in my memory. Needless to say, I am looking forward to this one! This will be either Friday or Saturday.

For our second one this week we will be starting up our Lord of the Rings: Living Card Game series. We will be doing the third quest out of the core set. This is by far one of the most difficult quests in this game. I have not gotten to play the newest cycle yet, so there may be a harder one in that cycle. But as for the first few cycles, this is the hardest. For this quest we will be adding an extra deck into the fray. We will do this one like normal on Sunday.

Of course, along with each of these will be their accompanying preparation posts. Keep an eye out for them as the week goes on!

Play-Through Party #2 Lord of the Rings: Journey Along the Anduin

Hello all! Welcome to the Play-Through Party. I will have my quest from last week, my wife, Megan helping out again. We left off with our heroes having made it out of the Forest and are heading towards the river this week.

For quick reference, here are the decks that we are using in this Play-Through:

• My Deck
• Megan’s Deck

Today we are going to be going through the Journey Along the Anduin quest from the core set of the Lord of the Rings: Living Card Game.

Setup

Megan’s opening hand was poor so she took her mulligan. She then got Faramir, Sneak Attack, Grave Cairn, Dunedain Quest,Dunedain Warning, and Bill the Pony. I got two Blade Masteries, Dagger of Westernness, Light of Valinor, Hasty Stroke, and Feint.

Emerging from Mirkwood Forest with an urgent message for Lady Galadriel, you must now make your way south along the Anduin River in order to reach the forest of Lorien. As you leave the forest behind, you notice that you are being pursued, and thus quicken your pace…

Setup: Each player reveals 1 card from the top of the encounter deck, and adds it to the staging area.

As you approach the location of a small raft stashed on the river bank, a fearsome Hill Troll emerges from behind a grouping of rocks, and attacks!

When Revealed: Search the encounter deck for 1 Hill Troll is one is not already in play, and place it in the staging area. Shuffle the encounter deck.

Players cannot defeat this stage while any Hill Troll cards are in play.

We each reveal our card from the top of the deck. I reveal the Necromancer’s reach, which does nothing at this point in the game, and Megan gets Evil Storm, which also does nothing. We then search the deck for the Hill Troll and place him in the staging area.

Starting Threats

• Me: 24
• Megan: 28

Turn 1-Quest 1-B

Megan draws Ever Vigilant. I drew Galadhrim’s Greeting. Megan is first and plays Bill the Pony. She then plays a Dunedain Quest and puts it on Sam. I will spend 1 resource to put Light of Valinor on Glorfindel.

Questing

Megan is sending her three heroes for a total of 7. She does her tactic of spending the extra resource from Theodred to un-exhaust Aragorn. I will send Glorfindel for 3, making our total 10. Necromancer’s Reach comes out and deals Sam and Theodred 1 damage each. Treacherous Fog comes out and is worthless because not Locations.

Willpower 10 vs their 1. Puts 9 progress on the quest card. Completing the quest, however, we cannot forward because of the Hill Troll.

Engagement and Combat

I will optionally engage the Hill Troll. Deal him his shadow card. I will spend Beorn’s Resource to play Feint, which makes the Hill Troll unable to attack this phase.

I will have all three heroes attack for a total of 9 attack vs 3 defense dealing 6 damage.

Ready and raise threats by 1.

Turn 2-Quest 1-B  Progress 9

• Me: 25
• Megan: 29

I am first now. Resource up and draw cards. I draw Westfold Horse Breaker. Megan draws Cram. I will play The Galadhrim’s Greeting to drop both of our threats by 2. Making mine 23, and hers 27. I will spend Beorn’s Resource to put a Dagger of Westernese on Glorfindel. Giving +1 attack all the time. +2 if the enemy has an engagement cost higher than my threat.
Megan plays a Dunedain Warning on Frodo and puts Cram with on Aragorn.

Questing

I send Glorfindel questing, Light of Valinor keeps him readied, and Megan sends her same three for a total of 10. Evil Storm comes out worthlessly. Pursued by Shadow comes out making Megan’s threat go up by 1, now 28. Mine goes up by 2 now 25 again.

Engagement and Combat

Hill Troll gets a shadow card. Beorn will block the hit from the Hill Troll, shadow card is Gladden Fields. Beorn takes 5 damage from the attack. All three heroes jump the Hill Troll and kill him.

Because of killing the Hill Troll, we move on to the next Quest Card.

After defeating the Troll, you are able to board the raft and embark upon a river voyage. As you depart, your enemies pursue, harassing the small vessel as you attempt to navigate the river…

As your enemies harass the raft, it is difficult to maintain the balance and effectively fight them off.

Reveal 1 additional card from the encounter deck each quest phase. Do not make engagement checks during the encounter phase. (Each player may still optionally engage 1 enemy each encounter phase.)

Refresh and raise threat by 1.

Turn 3 Quest 2-B

• Me: 26
• Megan: 29

Megan is first and drew another Warning card. I drew Dwarven Tomb. She plays her Warning on Aragorn, raising his defense to 3. I play my Dwarven Tomb to get my Galadrhim’s Greeting back.

Questing

We both send our same group, but Megan will send Bill for an extra 1, making our total 11. The Gladden Fields come out, The Marsh Adder comes out, and the last one is the Banks of the Anduin.

Total 11 vs 7, 4 go to the quest card. Megan’s sends us to the Gladden Fields.

Engagement and Combat

I optionally engage the Marsh Adder. He gets a shadow card. He has 4 attack I block with Frodo with 3 defense, Shadow card would increase his attack by 1, so I use Hasty Stroke to cancel it. I use Frodo’s ability to take the damage to my threat. Increasing it by 1 from damage, then another 1 from the Adder’s ability. Raising me up to 28.

Beorn and Glorfindel attack with a total of 10, thanks to the Dagger of Westernese, killing the Marsh Adder.
Refresh, raise threat by 1, plus an extra from the Gladden Fields.

Turn 4 Quest 2-B

• Me: 30
• Megan: 31

I am first, I drew Fortune or Fate. I play nothing. Megan draws, Dunedain Mark. She plays her Mark on Aragorn.

Questing

We both send the same people again for a total of 11. Megan uses Sneak attack to play Farmamir for his ability. Raising our total willpower by 4. Eastern Crows comes out, for its surge ability, The Brown Lands Comes out. Then Treacherous Fog and the Goblin Sniper.
Total willpower 15 vs 11 putting 3 on Gladden Fields, and 1 on the quest.

So we Travel to the Brown Lands, which explores itself upon arrival.

Engagement and Combat

Megan optionally engages the Eastern Crows, so I can optionally engage the Goblin Sniper. Megan plays Ever Vigilant to ready Bill the Pony. Eastern Crows is dealt Massing at Night, which gives it an extra shadow card for each player. The next shadow card is the Wolf Rider, which turns into another attacking creature to defend, which is dealt its own shadow card. Then the last shadow card for the Eastern Crows is dealt. It is Pursued by Shadow, which makes defending player choose and return 1 exhausted ally he controls to its hand. So bye bye Bill.

Aragorn takes 1 damage from the undefended attack. Megan uses Aragorn to block the attack from the Wolf Rider. Shadow card, Misty Mountain Goblins, which removes 1 progress token from the quest. Aragorn takes no damage, and the Wolf Rider goes to the top of the encounter deck.

I block against the Goblin Sniper with Frodo who has 3 defense vs the 2 attack. Shadow card is Despair where defending character does not count its defense. So Frodo is dealt 2 damage, and I move that to my threat, making it 32.

Megan discards Cram to ready Aragorn, and kills the crows. Beorn and Glorfindel maul the Goblin Sniper.
Refresh and raise threats by 1.

Turn 5 Quest 2-B

• Me: 33
• Megan: 32

Megan is first player again, draws Fresh Tracks. I draw another Galadhrim’s Greeting. Megan puts Bill back into play for free and spends 4 resources for Faramir. I spend 3 for Galadhrim’s Greeting for myself, making my threat 27.

Questing

Megan sends her 3 heroes, and uses Faramirs ability to get an extra 3 willpower, making her total 10. I send Glorfindel for 3, making our total 13.
Dol Guldur Beastmaster, Misty Mountain Goblins, and the East Bight come out. 13 vs 6 puts 7 on the quest card. Because we do not have an active location, we must travel to the East Bight.

Engagement and Combat

Megan optionally engages the Misty Mountain goblins, and I the Dol Guldur Beastmaster. Deal out shadow cards, two for the beast master.

The Goblins attack Megan, she uses Bill to block, and he dies. Shadow card is another East Bight, worthless. Megan plays Grave Cairn to give Bill’s 1 attack to Aragorn for later.

Frodo blocks the beast master, whose shadow cards are the Wargs +1 attack, and the Crows +1 attack making his total 5 vs my 3 defense. I will mitigate the 2 damage to my threat, making it 29, again.

Megan attacks with Aragorn and his attack of now 4, killing the Goblins. Glorfindel and Beorn attack the Beastmaster and kill him.

Refresh and raise threats by 1.

Turn 6 Quest 2-B Progress 10

• Me: 30
• Megan: 33

I am first player and draw, Elrond’s Counsel. I will spend my 3 resources to play the Galadhrim’s Greeting to drop us both by 2, making mine 28 and hers 31. Megan plays Hobbit Cloak on Frodo.

Questing

I send Glorfindel and play Elrond’s Counsel for free and raise his willpower by 1 for the phase and lower threat by another 3, down to 25. Megan uses her same move from last turn for a total of 10, making our total 14. Out comes Necromancer’s Pass, Dol Guldur Orcs dealing Glorfindel 2 damage, and Chieftan Ufthak.
Total 14 vs 8 puts the 6 on the East Bight we needed.

We travel to Necromancer’s Pass and I discard Blade Mastery and Fortune or Fate.

Engagement and Combat

I engage Cheiftan Ufthak and block with Frodo who has 5 defense against him. Shadow card, Gladden Fields, no effect. Frodo takes 0 damage. Beorn and Glorfindel attack for a total of 10 vs Ufthak’s 9 total defense and health, killing him.

Raise threats and refresh.

Turn 7 Quest 2-B Progress 10

• Me: 26
• Megan: 32

Megan draws Guard of the Citadel and plays it. I drew a song of battle and play West Fold HorseBreaker.

Questing

We send the same as last time for a total of 13. Out come the Dol Guldor Orcs, Dol Guldor Beastmaster, and Despair removing 4 tokens from the quest card. The orcs deal their two damage to Aragorn. The total threat is 7 vs 13. 2 Go on the Necromancers pass, then 4 go on the quest card putting us back at 10.
We go to the banks of the Anduin.

Engagement and Combat

Megan takes one of the Orcs on and I take the Beastmaster. Megan blocks with her Guard. Shadow card, worthless, enchanted stream. Dol Guldor Beastmaster attacks, Frodo blocks with 5 defense. Shadow cards Hill Troll and Driven by Shadow. I must remove the Dunedain Warning from Frodo. Frodo takes no damage. Megan kills the Orcs with Aragorn. Beorn and Glorfindel kill the beast master.

Raise threats and refresh.

Turn 8 Quest 2-B Progress 10

• Me: 27
• Megan: 33

I drew Quick Strike and Megan drew another Hobbit Cloak. She puts the Hobbit Cloak on Sam.

Questing

We send the same questers for a total of 13. Out comes Eastern Crows, surges a Wolf Rider, which surges an Enchanted Stream. Then a Necromancer’s Reach comes out and deals Sam, Theodred and Faramir. And finally the Misty Mountain Goblins come out.
13 vs 8 = 5 progress. 3 on the Banks of the Anduin and 2 on the quest. Banks of Anduin goes on top of deck.

Engagement and Combat

Megan optionally engages the Orcs and I the Goblins. Before dealing shadow cards, I Quick Strike the Goblins with Glorfindel. I block the Orcs with Beorn, taking 1 damage. Shadow card is banks of the Anduin. No effect. Aragorn “mauls” the orcs.

Table top banter at the moment summarized = “Well this quest is going horribly.”
Raise threats and refresh.

Turn 9 Quest 2-B Progress 12

• Me: 28
• Megan: 34

I draw Escort From Edoras, Megan draws Snowborn Scout. Megan plays the Snowborn Scout, putting a progress token on the Enchanted Stream. I play Escort from Edoras.

Questing

Megan sends her 10 again and I will send Glorfindel for 3 and Escort from Edoras for 4, making our total 17. Out comes Banks of the Anduin, Necromancer’s Pass, and more mother f’n orcs. Dealing 2 damage to Glorfindel. 17 vs 10. Finally completes the quest card..

The ongoing harassment from your enemies has forced your raft to the shore, and you must now confront their ambush head on. If you survive this attack, the path to the Golden Wood should be open before you…

When Revealed: Reveal 2 encounter cards per player, and add them to the staging area.

Skip the staging step of the quest phase for the remainder of the game.

Once there are no enemies in play, the players have won the game.

Goblin Sniper, Brown Lands, Wargs, and Evil Storm all come out.
We travel to the Brown Lands so it completes itself.

Engagement and Combat

We have to kill the Eastern Crows, Wolf Rider, Dol Guldor Orcs, Goblin Sniper, and Wargs. Megan plays fresh tracks on the Wargs as they come out. Dealing them 1 damage, and making them ignored during engagement phase.

Going in order for engagement checks: Megan gets the Crows, I get the Wolf Rider, She gets the Orcs, I will take the Wargs. Megan blocks the Orcs with her Snowborn Scout, killing it off. I block the Crows for her with Beorn and take no damage. Wolf Rider attacks, block with Frodo, no shadow effect, Frodo takes no damage. I block the Wargs with WestFold Horse Breaker, shadow card, Misty Mountain Goblins, no progress to take from, so worthless. Horse Breaker is gone.

Megan kills the Orcs with Aragorn. Beorn Kills the Wargs and Glorfindel the Wolf Rider. Goblin Sniper deals 1 damage to Faramir, and 1 to Frodo, which goes to my threat.

Raise threats and refresh.

Turn 10 Quest 3-B

• Me: 30
• Megan: 35

I drew Hasty Stroke. 10 turns too late. Megan drew a cram and uses it on Aragorn.

Questing

Megan sends her 3 heroes for questing so we break even.

Engagement and Combat

I engage the Sniper. I block Sniper with Frodo. Frodo has 4 defense vs 2 attack + 1 from shadow card, Dol Guldor Orcs. Frodo takes no damage. Megan blocks with Faramir, shadow card on Crows is banks of the Anduin. Faramir takes no damage. I maul the Sniper with everyone, and Aragorn shoves his sword up the crows poop shoot.

Wrap-up

Ending threats 30 + 35 = 65.
Total turns 10 * 10 = 100.
Total Damage 17.
Victory Points 14.

Total Score is 168. As bad as this game went, we have experienced worse with different decks.

The beaten and bloodied group finally escapes the clutches of their evil pursuers. Low on spirit, and gravely wounded they all retreat as quickly as possible, hoping to reach the Lady Galadriel before their wounds overcome them…

Play-Through Party Preparation: LOTRLCG Sunday

This week we for Play-Through Party we are going to start our Lord of the Rings Journey. We are, of course, going to be going in order from the very beginning quest, Journey Through Mirkwood. As I mentioned in the Tavern Post a few days ago, I updated a deck a made last week for this party. This is the deck description below:
Heroes:

• Glorfindel(FoS)
• Frodo Baggins(CatC)
• Beorn(OHaUH)

Allies:

• Arwen x 2(TWitW)
• Lorein Guide x 1
• Westfold Horse Breaker x 3(HfG)
• Bofur x 1(TRG)
• Gondorian Spearman x 3
• Escort From Edoras x 2 (JtR)
• Northern Tracker x1
• Gandalf x 2

Attachments:

• Light of Valinor x 2(FoS)
• Unexpected Courage x 1
• Ancient Mathom x 3 (aJtR)
• Ring Mail x 2 (tLD)
• Dagger of Westernesse x 2 (tBR)
• Horn of Gonder x 1
• Rivendell Blade x 1 (RtR)
• Song of Battle x 1 (tDM)
• Resourceful x 1 (tWitW)
• Boots From Erebor x 1 (Khaz)

Events:

• Fortune or Fate x 1
• Elrond’s Counsel x 3 (tWitW)
• The Galadhrim’s Greeting x 2
• Blade Mastery x 3
• Feint x 2
• Quick Strike x 2
• Swift Strike x 1
• A Test of Will x 2
• Hasty Stroke x 2
• Stand and Fight x 1
• Dwarven Tomb x 1
• Total: 50

I am still deciding on what I want in my sideboard for this deck. I may not have one for the first quest.

The Tavern Post

Play-Through Party

For this weeks Play-Through Party we will be playing Lord of the Rings: Living Card Game. We are going to start with the Journey through Mirkwood quest. The deck that I will be using is a modified version of the Spirit/Tactics deck found here. Later this week before Sunday I will post up the cards for the new deck in a quick post.

Dungeons and Dragons

For our Dungeons and Dragons posts so far we have been using 4e. I was raised on 3.5 and adopted 4e awhile back. However, from this point forward we are going to be using fifth edition rules. After putting it off, I finally got my copies of the new rules. I will post a review of it as well once I get more reading done on it. However, my initial response to the new rules is one of excitement. It looks much better than 4e, and as I have mentioned, I was a fan of 4e. Just not as big of a fan as I was with 3.5.

LOTRLCG: Spirit/Tactics Deck

This deck is a newer deck I made to run along with my wive’s Leadership/Spirit deck. I gave her the majority of the typical cards used in a Spirit deck, so I had to get creative for mine to work. I will be posting that deck up here as well.

The Heroes

For Tactics we are going to use the beast (literally), Beorn(OHaUH)! I could have picked different heroes such as Gimli because he can become such a great hero. However, I chose Beorn, because he has Sentinel and does not have to exhaust to defend. Beorn also has a starting attack of 5 and health of 10. These combined give me the ability to hold my own at the early stages of the quest.
For Spirit I picked Frodo Baggins (CatC) and Glorfindel (FoS). I chose Frodo because he also can take a beating and stay alive, with the proper attachments. His ability lets him cancel damage dealt to him and raise your threat by that amount instead, once per round. Glorfindel will be the designated quester. He has a starting willpower of 3, and 3 attack. If you pair him with Light of Valinor, he does not have to exhaust to go on a quest. This will give us the ability to still quest, and gang up on enemies with Beorn. The goal of this deck is to be able to help with questing, and deal out some serious punishement.

Allies

As I mentioned above, most of my normal Spirit cards are in my wive’s deck, so out of the cards that were left, these were the best. First off is the remaining Lorien Guide, she will help us get through locations. Next is Bofur, for help questing. Westfold Horse-Breaker will come along to help us ready a hero. The last Spirit card is Arwen Undomiel, for questing and ability. Her ability is also going to be used to help us boost our hobbit hero, Frodo. Her ability lets us give a character Sentinel and +1 defense. Because of Frodo’s ability, this is a great bonus to him, giving him 3 defense. This will make him quite formidable.
For Tactics, we are taking the Gondorian Spearman. We are going to take three of them, because they have Sentinel and deal damage as they die. I will also be taking the Tactics version of Bofur because his ability will let us search the top 5 cards of our deck for a weapon attachment and put it in our hands. For some extra chump blockers, I am adding 1 Winged Guardian and 3 Vasals of the Windlord. To finish up the ally lineup is, of course, Gandalf. There are two left and we will take both of them.
The deck so far:
Heroes:

• Glorfindel(FoS)
• Frodo Baggins(CatC)
• Beorn(OHaUH)

Allies:

• Arwen x 2(TWitW)
• Lorein Guide x 1
• Westfold Horse Breaker x 1(HfG)
• Bofur x 1(TRG)
• Gondorian Spearman x 3
• Bofur x 1 (OHaUH)
• Winged Guardian x 1(HfG)
• Vassal of the Windlord x 3 (TDM)
• Gandalf x 2
• Total: 15

Attachments

As you can tell so far on the number of allies we have, we are going to be having much more attachments and events. This deck is going to rely on the raw power of our heroes, so we need cards to beef them up or provide us a means to hold out awhile longer. For our Spirit Attachments we are going to take 2 copies of Miruvor, because it can offer us some decent options depending on the situation. 3 copies of Ancient Mathom for card draw as we clear locations out. As we mentioned above, we are also taking Light of Valinor, which is going to be a staple card we need to survive. This allows Glorfindel to not exhaust when he quests.
For Tactics we are taking the Horn of Gondor so we can have some extra resource income. We are also taking 1 copy of both Rivendell Blade and Rivendell Bow. Both are made to be put on to Glorfindel and will make him a much stronger attacker. I have 2 copies of keeping count. I plan to use one on Frodo and the other on Glorfindel. This will make Glorfindel an even stronger attacker. Dagger of Westernesse will be used for the same thing. 1 copy of Citadel Plate just in case we need to make Frodo stronger. We are also taking 2 copies of Ring Mail as well to bolster our hobbit.
We are also taking 4 neutral attachments. 1 copy of the Boots From Erebor to give Frodo another +1 hitpoint for free. 1 copy of Resourceful so we can get some extra resource generation, and 2 Songs of Battle so we can give our other heroes the Tactics icon, giving them the ability to pay for Tactics cards as well.
The deck so far:
Heroes:

• Glorfindel(FoS)
• Frodo Baggins(CatC)
• Beorn(OHaUH)

Allies:

• Arwen x 2(TWitW)
• Lorein Guide x 1
• Westfold Horse Breaker x 1(HfG)
• Bofur x 1(TRG)
• Gondorian Spearman x 3
• Bofur x 1 (OHaUH)
• Winged Guardian x 1(HfG)
• Vassal of the Windlord x 3 (TDM)
• Gandalf x 2

Attachments:

• Light of Valinor x 2(FoS)
• Miruvor x 2 (SaF)
• Ancient Mathom x 3 (aJtR)
• Ring Mail x 2 (tLD)
• Citadel Plate x 1
• Dagger of Westernesse x 2 (tBR)
• Keeping Count x 2 (tRG)
• Horn of Gonder x 1
• Rivendell Bow x 1 (tWitW)
• Rivendell Blade x 1 (RtR)
• Song of Battle x 2 (tDM)
• Resourceful x 1 (tWitW)
• Boots From Erebor x 1 (Khaz)
• Total: 32

Events

For events we are sticking with our goal as well, smashing the enemies as quickly as possible and getting through the quest. To help us out, we are taking Fortune or Fate, just in case Beorn dies. We are also taking Elrond’s Counsel to lower our threat for free thanks to Glorfindel. For our Tactics events we are taking Halfling Determination to make Frodo stronger, Blade Mastery to help either Frodo or Glorfindel. Feint to buy us some time for an all out attack. Quick Strike so we can finish off an enemy before their turn to attack. And Swift Strike so we can use Frodo to abosrb damage and deal out 2 damage to an opponent.

The deck so far:
Heroes:

• Glorfindel(FoS)
• Frodo Baggins(CatC)
• Beorn(OHaUH)

Allies:

• Arwen x 2(TWitW)
• Lorein Guide x 1
• Westfold Horse Breaker x 1(HfG)
• Bofur x 1(TRG)
• Gondorian Spearman x 3
• Bofur x 1 (OHaUH)
• Winged Guardian x 1(HfG)
• Vassal of the Windlord x 3 (TDM)
• Gandalf x 2

Attachments:

• Light of Valinor x 2(FoS)
• Miruvor x 2 (SaF)
• Ancient Mathom x 3 (aJtR)
• Ring Mail x 2 (tLD)
• Citadel Plate x 1
• Dagger of Westernesse x 2 (tBR)
• Keeping Count x 2 (tRG)
• Horn of Gonder x 1
• Rivendell Bow x 1 (tWitW)
• Rivendell Blade x 1 (RtR)
• Song of Battle x 2 (tDM)
• Resourceful x 1 (tWitW)
• Boots From Erebor x 1 (Khaz)

Events:

• Fortune or Fate x 1
• Elrond’s Counsel x 3 (tWitW)
• Halfling Determination x 2 (tBR)
• Blade Mastery x 3
• Feint x 2
• Quick Strike x 2
• Swift Strike x 1
• Total: 50

LOTRLCG: Deck Building

After walking you through making a deck from the core set that I used to use, now we are going to go over a guide on how to make your own from start to end. Deck building can be the most daunting task in the Lord of the Rings: Living Card Game. Some people start looking at all of the cards and have one of those moments where their mind explodes. Deck building is one of those things that can be done in many different ways. Keep in mind this is one of the many ways of making a deck.

Goal

The first step of deck building will be figuring out the goal of the deck. What do you want your deck to accomplish? Do you want a “theme” deck, where all of your cards share similar traits like hobbits or dwarves? Or do you want you have a specific ability in mind? With just the Core Set at your disposal, the card pool to pick from for a theme deck is kind of out of the picture. However, you can apply the same concepts I will cover here to make a themed deck.
Since a theme deck is out of the question, we will look at abilities. Do we want our deck to be a questing powerhouse? Do we want to be the fighter in our group, the guy who does all of the fighting? Do we want to manipulate our deck, trying to get the best cards out of it? Or do we want to manipulate the encounter deck and it’s cards in the staging area? These are some of the examples abilities you can pick from. No matter your ability, you need to think, “How will my deck be able to handle the encounter deck?”
For this example, let us build a deck that is good at manipulating both our deck and the encounter deck. So this will be the abilities we need to look for when building our deck.

Picking a Sphere

Lucky for us, most of the abilities are segregated out into the spheres of influence in the game. Once you have your goal in mind you can then check out which spheres do what, and that will give you a direction to start in.

• Lore: drawing cards, healing, manipulating both the player and encounter decks, managing location and threat levels of the encounter deck
• Tactics: damage, attacking, defending, tanking
• Leadership: generating resources, manipulating your deck, and readying
• Spirit: manipulating your deck, location and threat management, canceling treacheries, readying, boosting willpower, and getting cards back that have been played already

Based on our ability from above that we are setting as our goal and our list of the spheres here, we would be able to use Spirit, Lore, and some of Leadership. We are going to go the Spirit/Lore way because they fit the outline of our goal much closer.

Picking Heroes

As we discussed in our other tutorial, with just the Core Set, we will have 3 heroes to consider per a sphere of influence. If you look at the six heroes to pick from:

• Éowyn
• Eleanor
• Dúnhere
• Denethor
• Glorfindel
• Beravor

Based on our theme we are going with, the four heroes that perform well with that theme best are Éowyn, Eleanor, Denethor, and Beravor. Next we will compare them all and see what we want to pick.




Éowyn has really good stats for questing and she has her ability to discard a card to increase her willpower. In my opinion, she is a must have for this deck. Eleanor has a low starting threat, decent defense compared to Éowyn, but her magic lies in her ability. You can exhaust her to cancel the ‘when revealed’ effects of a treachery card, and replace it with a new card from the deck. This will come in handy, since we are going to be coming up short on physical power with this deck. However, lets keep looking at the other too. Denethor is another Hero with low starting threat, he has great defense for the Core Set. His ability allows us to exhaust him to look at the top card of the encounter deck. If we do not like what we see, we can move it to the bottom. This card has some potential. Not only does he have 3 Defense, but he also has the ability to alter the next card from the encounter deck, and for us to be prepared for it.

Lastly, is Beravor. She is a personal favorite of mine from the Core Set. However, of the four heroes we are looking at, she does have the highest threat. She has 2’s down the board with 4 Hitpoints so she is the most rounded out hero of the list. Her ability allows us to exhaust her and pick a player. That player can draw 2 cards, but it has a limit of once per round.

With all of this information in mind and our theme in mind we can now see which ones are our best 3. Éowyn is a must for this deck. She is going to be the dedicated quester. This puts our starting threat at 9. Next, I say Eleanor is crucial to this deck. We will not have a big beefy hero to defend us, so we need a hero who can defend us from treacheries at least. So Eleanor gets a spot. This makes our starting threat 16.

The last one is going to be the hardest choice. Beravor will give us some great card draw ability each turn. However Denethor will allow us to alter the encounter deck more than once a turn if we can find a way to ready him in the middle of the turn. I think we will go with Denethor for this deck. I like the ability to change what card the enemy gets to use and think that could really help keep us alive. This makes our starting threat level 24! This is going to be very helpful.

Picking Allies

Picking allies is where things will start to get a little more difficult because sometimes the allies can be deceivingly useful/useless. So we will have to sit down and look at each one to see which ones will make the list. Some people will follow a ratio of 50% allies/ 25% attachments/ 25% events, but we will not set out to do so. I believe that sometimes prevents people from trying new things with their decks.

We will start with the spirit allies because there are only 3 in the Core Set, The Wandering Took, The Lorien Guide, and the Northern Tracker. The Wandering Took is out automatically because it’s ability will only work when you are playing with more than one player. Both of the other two will provide us with some location management. What that means, is they will give us a way to handle locations, as the encounter deck deals them out. Both of their abilities work when they are sent questing. The Guide will put a progress token on the active location, just for joining in the quest, and the Tracker will put 1 progress token on ALL of the locations in the staging area. Together, you can blow through locations in no time flat. We will include 2 of each in the deck.

Next up is the Lore allies. First is Henamarth Riversong. It only costs 1 to play and allows us to look at the top card of the encounter deck. This will be great addition to our deck. There is only one to bring along in a single Core Set. Next up is the Erebor Hammersmith. When he is played you can grab the topmost attachment from your discard pile and add it to your hand. We will add 2 of him as well.

Miner of the Iron Hills is next and he allows us to choose 1 Condition attachment and remove it from play. If any of you have been reading the play test with the first deck we made, you will know this will be a great card to handle the A Caught in a Web treachery. We will be adding 2 of him as well. Gleowine will allow us to exhaust it to draw 1 card. This will be a helpful way for some card draw. We will add 2 of these as well. Daughter of the Nimrodel is going to be our healer. We can exhuast her to heal up to 2 damage on any 1 hero. This will come in handy if we get in trouble.

• Lorien Guide x2
• Northern Tracker x2
• Henamarth Riversong x1
• Erebor Hammersmith x2
• Miner of the Iron Hills x2
• Gleowine x2
• Daughter of the Nimrodel x3
• ————–Total: 14——————

We now have our allies lined up. They all will either help us with our cause directly or will give us some minor way of support (like the Minor of the Iron Hills).

Picking Attachments

We will follow the same method for picking attachments. We need to find attachments that will help our theme. If they go against our theme they are out.
We will keep it going with Spirit first like above. Power in the Earth is a decent one. We can attach that to a location to reduce its threat by 1. This can work well if we get stuck early on. We will add 2 of these. The Favor of the Lady will increase attached hero’s willpower by 1. We can definitely take these and pile them on Eowyn. We will also take both of them. Unexpected Courage is pretty much a must have for every Spirit deck. It allows attached hero to ready if you exhaust Unexpected Courage. This can be useful in tons of situations. We will take our 1 copy.

Now the Lore cards. Protector of Lorien will give attached hero the ability to discard a card to increase defense or willpower by 1 until the end of the phase. This could help out as well if we get into a bind. We will take 2. Dark Knowledge would give attached hero -1 willpower. But we would have the ability to exhaust Dark Knowledge to look at 1 shadow card that was just dealt to an enemy. I would take this, but we will have better cards in events to help us. Forest snare is going to be one of our trump cards. Forest snare will attach to an enemy that is engaged with us. Once we attach it, the enemy can not attack at all. We will take 2. Lastly is Self Preservation. We attach it to a character. We can exhaust Self Preservation, and it will allow us to remove 2 damage from the character. We will take 1 of these.

So far our deck looks like this:

Heroes-

• Eowyn
• Eleanor
• Denethor
• ——–Total: 3——-

Allies-

• Lorien Guide x2
• Northern Tracker x2
• Henamarth Riversong x1
• Erebor Hammersmith x2
• Miner of the Iron Hills x2
• Gleowine x2
• Daughter of the Nimrodel x3
• Gandalf x3
• ————–Total: 17——————

Attachments-

• Power in the Earth x2
• The Favor of the Lady x2
• Unexpected Courage x1
• Protector of Lorien x2
• Forest Snare x2
• Self Preservation x1
• ————–Total: 10——————

• ———–Total: 27———–

Our deck is coming together quite nicely. Now the only thing we need to add is our events.

Picking Events

I left us plenty of room when we go to pick event cards because I know my guilty pleasure are the event cards. I always end up wanting way more than will fit into the deck. We will look at these the same was as the others.

Up first is Strength of Will. Normally I take this. It is free to play, all you have to do is exhaust a spirit character when you travel to put 2 progress tokens on the new location. We will not have any of our spirit characters ready after questing except Eleanor. Hasty stroke will allow us to cancel shadow cards. We will take 2 of these. Will of the West will let us take our discard pile and shuffle it into our deck. We will take 2 of these for now.

A Test of Will will allow us to cancel the When Revealed effects on a card just revealed. We will take 2 of these. Dwarven tomb will let us return 1 Spirit card from our discard pile to our hand. We will take the only copy. A light in the dark allows us to take an enemy we are engaged with and return it to the staging area. We will not be taking this along because we will have our forest snares. The Galadhrim’s Greeting we will definitely take, because it lets us reduce our threat by 6. Fortune or Fate will allow us to revive a dead hero. We will not take this(and hopefully we will not need it). Lastly is Stand and Fight. Stand and Fight will let us bring back and characters from the discard pile. We will take 3 copies of this.

For the Lore cards, we have Radagast’s Cunning/Secret Paths. They both work similarly, just with different targets. Radagast’s Cunning will allows us to choose an enemy in the staging area. The one we pick does not contribute its threat. Secret Paths does the same but with locations. We will be taking 2 of each. Lore of Imladris will be another healing card. It will let us completely heal one character. We will take 1 of these. Next is Lorien’s Wealth. This will allow one player to draw 3 cards. We will take 2 of these. Beorn’s Hospitality Will heal all heroes of chosen player.we will take none of these. Lastly is Gandalf’s Secret. This card will let us look at cards on the top of our deck and take one of them and add it to our hand, and then we can place the remaining cards back on top of the deck. Which means we will know what is coming up. This fits perfectly with our theme. We will take 2 of these.

Now to take another look at our deck updated with event cards:
Heroes-

• Eowyn
• Eleanor
• Denethor
• ——–Total: 3——-

Allies-

• Lorien Guide x2
• Northern Tracker x2
• Henamarth Riversong x1
• Erebor Hammersmith x2
• Miner of the Iron Hills x2
• Gleowine x2
• Daughter of the Nimrodel x3
• Gandalf x3
• ————–Total: 17——————

Attachments-

• Power in the Earth x2
• The Favor of the Lady x2
• Unexpected Courage x1
• Protector of Lorien x2
• Forest Snare x2
• Self Preservation x1
• ————–Total: 10——————

Events-

• Hasty Stroke x2
• Will of the West x2
• Test of Will x2
• Dwarven Tomb x1
• The Galadhrim’s Greeting x2
• Stand and Fight x3
• Radagast’s Cunning x2
• Secret Paths x2
• Lore of Imladris x1
• Lorien’s Wealth x2
• Gandalf’s Search x2
• ———Total: 21——

• ———–Total: 48———–

Rounding Out the Deck

We have a 48 card deck. However, we have 24 Lore cards in this deck. With only 1 Lore hero we should try to keep the amount of Lore cards to 1/3 (the number of pertaining heroes we have for Lore). So what we need to do know is look into what we can change about this deck to fix this issue. We can get rid of one Daughter of the Nimrodel and our Self Preservation. We can add our additional Lorien Guide to this as well. Now we have 22/47 cards being Lore. We are getting closer. Now we need to look at additional cards we can add extra copies of for spirit to balance it out some. We have added the maximum capacity on the Spirit cards we have, so we can add 3 copies of Wondering Took. His ability will be of no use to us, but with the limited card pool of the Core Set, it is the best we can come up with. We will also take out our Lore of Imladris and 1 of our copies of Lorien’s Wealth.
Since we have added the Wandering Tooks we can now add the Strength of Wills and that will leave us with 50 cards. Now our of Lore for the deck is 20/50. This is not the best ratio, but with only one Core Set, this is the best that can be done.
Here is our deck now:

• Eowyn
• Eleanor
• Denethor
• ——–Total: 3——-

Allies-

• Lorien Guide x3
• Northern Tracker x2
• Wandering Took x3
• Henamarth Riversong x1
• Erebor Hammersmith x2
• Miner of the Iron Hills x2
• Gleowine x2
• Daughter of the Nimrodel x2
• Gandalf x3
• ————–Total: 20——————

Attachments-

• Power in the Earth x2
• The Favor of the Lady x2
• Unexpected Courage x1
• Protector of Lorien x2
• Forest Snare x2
• ————–Total: 9——————

Events-

• Strength of Will x2
• Hasty Stroke x2
• Will of the West x2
• Test of Will x2
• Dwarven Tomb x1
• The Galadhrim’s Greeting x2
• Stand and Fight x3
• Radagast’s Cunning x2
• Secret Paths x2
• Lorien’s Wealth x1
• Gandalf’s Search x2
• ———Total: 21——

• ———–Total: 50———–

Figure Out the Cards You Will Need in Your Opening Hand

Looking at our cards here for this deck, we need some questing ability right off the bat, and of course some threat reduction. The cards I would look for with this deck in my first hand would be: The Galadhrim’s Greeting, Unexpected Courage, Favor of the Lady, Test of Will, and the Lorien Guide. Maybe even Henamarth Riversong or Gleowine as well. If I did not get at least half of those cards, I would take a mulligan.

Play-Testing

Now that you have your deck created, and you figured out what you need to make it start off well, the last part is to test it out. Play out a quest. Grade it. Critique it. Did it perform how you expected it? For this deck:
Did it reduce our threat enough? How often did we actually get to manipulate the encounter deck or our deck? Did we get bogged down in locations? After you answer some of these questions you move onto updating your deck. What cards can you remove to increase performance?

If your deck does not work well on the first try do not fret. This game can be harsh at times. Sometimes the encounter deck knows when you have a crappy hand or are low on resources and just decides to crap on you. Give it a few tries before you rule out that the deck is bad.

LOTRLCG: Trying Out Our First Deck-Passage Through Mirkwood Take Two

In the last post we tested out our Spirit/Tactics deck. It did not go as well as it did earlier in the day, so I decided to do another run through. Hopefully this one will go better.
Opening hand this time is

• The Galadhrim’s Greeting
• Hasty Stroke
• Gondorian Spearman
• Gondorian Spearman
• Veteran Axehand
• Stand and Fight

This hand is much better than the last hand because it gives us a few more allies, and we still have our greeting.

Turn 1- Quest 1B- Threat 26

Resource up and draw our other Gondorian Spearman. We will open the same way, we will play no cards.
Questing we will send the lovely Eowyn. Driven by shadows comes out of the encounter deck giving them a total of 5. I discard our Veteran Axehand to increase Eowyn’s Willpower to 5. We break even. I will save the Old Forest Road for a later turn when the effect will pay off more. The Forest Spider will engage us and attack. We will block with Dunhere. Flip shadow card, it is Enchanted Stream, no effect. Dunhere will take 2 damage. We will now attack with Legolas dealing the spider 2 damage as well. Ready and raise our threat by 1.

Turn 2- Quest 1B- Threat 27

Resource up and draw Gandalf. We will spend Legolas’s 2 resources for a spearman. 1 from Dunhere and 2 from Eowyn for our Galadhrim’s Greeting, lowering our threat to 21. Eowyn will quest again by herself. Encounter deck reveals Necromancers Pass. We break even again on questing. We will travel to Necromancers Pass. We must randomly discard 2 cards from hand and they are, Stand and Fight and a Gondorian Spearman. Spider will attack us, spearman will block. Dying it deals 1 damage to the spider. Shadow card was another Necromancer’s Pass. Legolas and Dunhere will combine forces to crush the spider into a goo. With that said, Legolas’s ability puts two on the Necromancer’s Pass, completing it. We will ready our cards, and we will raise threat by 1. Dunhere is only person with resource left.

Turn 3- Quest 1B- Threat 22

Resource up and we draw the horn of Gondor. We are going to place that onto Legolas and spend his 1 resource to do so. Every time a character leaves play we will put 1 resource on him.
We will send everyone questing this turn. The questing deck reveals yet another Caught in a Web card… This time we are going to put this onto Legolas. We will ready everyone but Legolas. Raise our threat by 1.

Turn 4- Quest 1B: Progress 5- Threat 23

Resource up, and draw… imagine that a Test of Will. If that would have been one turn sooner we would not be in this predicament. We will send both Eowyn and Dunhere questing. The Dol Guldor Beast master comes out. They have a total of 3 threat vs. our 5 willpower. I will discard our last Gondorian Spearman to make ours 6. This way we can complete this quest card and move onto the next. I will travel to the Old Forest Road so Dunhere can start beating on the beast master in the staging area. We travel and get to ready one hero, I choose Dunhere. Dunhere will go on the attack and hit the Beast master for 2 damage. We will ready everyone but Legolas, and raise our threat by 1.

Turn 5- Quest 2B- Threat 24

Resource up and draw Will of the West. We can use this after we play Gandalf to get him and out other cards back into our deck. I will send Eowyn Questing by herself. Eyes of the Forest pops up from the Encounter deck, this time we are prepared with a Test of Will. I will spend 1 resource from Dunhere to cancel the effect of the treachery card and discard it from play. We put 2 progress on the Old Forest Road. Dunhere will attack and deal the beast master another 2 damage. Ready our heroes and pay 2 resources from Legolas to ready him as well. Raise threat by 1.

Turn 6- Quest 2B- Threat 25

Resource up and we draw a quick strike. This will be helpful if the next card from the deck doesn’t crap all over us. Eowyn and Dunhere will quest. Enchanted Stream comes up giving them 4 threat vs our 5 willpower. We move past the Old Forest Road. We only need two to complete this quest card we are on, and we have a certain elf on our team that will allow us to put two progress on quest when he helps kill something. So we will optionally engage the beast master. And we will automatically spend our 1 resource with Legolas to play Quick Strike to kill the beast master. This puts two progress on our current quest card and moves us onto the next. We will shuffle them up, then we will flip over..Beorn’s Path, again. We need 10 progress to get through this bad boy. We will ready everyone but Legolas, and raise our threat by 1, and we shall see what happens next. Eowyn and Dunhere both have 4 resources each.

Turn 7- Quest 3B- Threat 26

Resource up and draw another Gandalf. Fantastic, these are the kind of cards we need right now. I will spend 1 from Dunhere and 4 from Eowyn to bring out the Big G. We shall reduce our threat by 5. We are now at 21 again. We shall Eowyn, Dunhere, and Gandalf to quest. The other Caught in a Web comes out, so we will just smack that down on Legolas as well. Poor guy. We have 9 willpower vs. their 2. So 7 progress is made on the quest. Ready everyone but Legolas, Gandalf scurries away on some important errand he claimed needs to be done now, and that gives our Legolas 1 resource.

Turn 8- Quest 3B: Progress 7- Threat 22

We resource up and draw a Northern Tracker. We will spend all of Dunhere’s resources and call on Big G again. Lowering our threat by another 5, this puts us at 17. We will go on an all out questing spree for a total of 9, I will even discard our Northern Tracker to make it an even 10. Old Forest Road comes out, giving them a total of 3. We put 7 progress on the quest. We needed 3.

Our final score is: 80 (turns(8 x 10) + 2(damage on Dunhere) + 17 (ending threat) – 0(victory points) = 98.
This score is much better. This score matches the score I made when I was testing out the deck for the Making Our First Deck Post. Based on the three games, it would appear the 98 is the more common of the scores. However, that does not mean that the encounter deck will not decide to take a steaming dump on you.